new 3d rendering workstation

[brianrg]

I am a newbie here and am trying to put a new 3D rendering workstation together w/ price/performanc in mind - 2k would be the absolute max I would spend.

Looking at AMD Athlon XP 2100, Pentium 4 2.4, Pentium 4 2533 for single processors
or dual athlon mp 2000's or dual pentium 4 xeon 2.4's or 2.2's.
Looking at Western Digital WD 1000 8MB, Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 for hard drives.
Looking at DDR RAM or RDRAM - 1.5GB to 2GB.
Looking at MSI, Asus, Abit motherboards.
Looking at Nvidia or 3dlabs video cards.
Looking for a CDRW drive.

Can someone outline a suggested system for me? What kind of retailer does one go to put such a system together?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Matisaro]

For the price of a single 2.4ghz p4 you can pretty much get both dual processors, for rendering duals help alot.


Kelledin can set you up with a spec for a good duallie system, I prefer single cpus myself.

The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[FatBurger]

I agree, dual AMDs is are definitely your best option.

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

 

[HonestJhon]

dual mps would be best cost effective option...
as much ram as you can afford.
i would get the 8mb WD...
motherboard...dunno...sorry.
video card...i would have said 3dlabs like a year ago...but i havent kept up on their products...but a geforce4 quadro would be a good option...
Cdrw...any name brand at least 24x. (i think they might have gotten past 32x burners now? not sure).
when it comes to 3d rendering, you want as much ram as you can get...and dual processors helps a lot.
and the cache on the HD will help it keep up...
sorry i wasnt too detailed, but i hope that helps.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[NurseMSIC]

For my 2 cents (well 2p in England), i think all too often people think workstation = dual processing without thinking it through.
I'm not specifically saying "don't do it", but i think that even for applications that use them, dual cpus are only good when you absolutely need as much cpu power as possible, but i dont think they are necessarily good value for money.
Eg If you could get a single P3 1 Ghz now, or 2 500Mhz for the same money (or even 2 733 Mhz) i'd go for the 1 Ghz as its a much better all-rounder. I think the same applies as you up the speed still, but since you cannot buy a 3Ghz chip yet, getting dual 2Ghz are the best possible (well 2.56 Ghz or whatever is the latest, you get the point).

What do you think people?

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=18108" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=18108</A>

 

[HonestJhon]

well, if he is thinking about getting a 3D labs video card, i doubt he is going to use this thing for much more than 3d rendering...MAYBE some gaming...
but he asked about a 3d rendering workstation...and 3d rendering is QUITE cpu intensive...hence the stress on dual CPUs...
and in this situation, DONT HOLD ME TO THIS, i think dual 733 p3s would out render a single 1ghz p3...but that is just what i can think of.
i might be wrong.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

i'll put together something good for you ... gimme a minute aiight? and then you can take a look and maybe go from there or make changes and such .. be right back

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

Got something for ya ... i just hope you have 15grand!

Of course www.dell.com under desktops then workstations - small business and go from there. But this is something i could drool over ... oops just wet my pants .. doh!

Dell Precision™Workstation 530: Intel® Xeon™ Processor, 2.40GHz, 512K Cache
2nd Processor (Must match speed selection above.): Intel® Xeon™ Processor, 2.40GHz, 512K Cache
Memory: 1.5GB PC800 ECC RDRAM® (4 RIMMS™)
Keyboard: Enhanced Performance, USB keyboard, 7 Hot Keys
Monitor: 19 inch Dell (17.97 inch vis) UltraScan® P992 Trinitron® Monitor
Graphics Card: nVidia, Quadro4 900XGL, 128MB, VGA/DVI
1st Hard Drive: 73GB Ultra 160/M SCSI, 1 inch (10,000 rpm)
Floppy Drive: 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional (Service Pack 2)
Mouse: Logitech®, USB, Optical (2-button, w/scroll)
Additional Network Card: Intel PRO/1000 XT, Gigabit PCI NIC
Modem: V.90 PCI Data/Fax Controllerless Modem
CD ROM, DVD, and Read-Write Drives: 24X/10X/40X IDE CD Read-Write
Microsoft Bundled Software: Microsoft Office XP Small Business and HK-206 speakers
2nd Hard Drive: 73GB Ultra 160/M SCSI, 1 inch (10,000 rpm)
RAID: PERC3/DCP,RAID5,Stripe w/Parity,2Channel Internal/External,64MB Cache,for 4 SCSI Hard Drives
Hardware Support Services: 3Yrs Same Day 4Hr Response Parts + Onsite Labor (7 Days x 24 Hours)
Optional Support Services: Gold Technical Support, Precision, 3 Years
Installation Services: No Installation
4th Hard Drive: 73GB Ultra 160/M SCSI, 1 inch (10,000 rpm)
Mouse Pad: Mouse Pad
3rd Hard Drive: 73GB Ultra 160/M SCSI, 1 inch (10,000 rpm)
2nd Monitor: 17" Dell (16.00" vis) P793 Diamondtron® Monitor
Mail-In Rebate Offer: Mail in Rebate (can not be combined with Free Memory Upgrade Offer)
Cables: SCSI Hard Drive Cable
Special Offer: Special Offer - $200 Off
Anti Virus Software – Shipped Separately: Norton Anti Virus

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[bront]

Dual Athlon MPs would probably be the route to go CPU wise.

Get the Western Digital drive, the 8MB makes a bigger difference than ATA133 (Which isn't supported by the 760MX chipset anyway)

Obviously, DDR ram. PC2100, probably 3 ECC Registered 512 sticks if you can swing it. non-ecc and non-registered will save money, but they're nice to have and tend to be a bit more reliable when you have large ammounts of memory in a dual CPU system.

I like ASUS, and have always had good experiences with them. They have a sweet dual CPU MB out (A7M266-D I think).

If you want a certified high end board, go for a Quadro 4 or a Fire GL 8800. The fire drivers were better on release than the Quadro, and ATI has been doing wonderful things with their drivers since then. If you're on a budget, you can try the Quadro DCC or 3D labs card, as they are older so they should be a bit cheeper. Or, you can try a GF3 and use the registry hack to turn it into a Quadro DCC, but I don't know how well that acutaly works.

I don't need an anti-virus program, I just boil my computer once a week.

 

[FatBurger]

Or, you can try a GF3 and use the registry hack to turn it into a Quadro DCC, but I don't know how well that acutaly works.

Flamethrower has done it, he'd be the one to ask.

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

 

[bront]

Just to ask... why would you have a 19 inch and a 17 inch monitor setup as dual monitors? I would think that would have issues.

Hey, who needs a car when you can have this baby anyway?

I don't need an anti-virus program, I just boil my computer once a week.

 

[bront]

Has anyone actualy ever seen benchmarks in apps for a real DCC vs a hacked DCC? Would be interesting to see.

I don't need an anti-virus program, I just boil my computer once a week.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

oops your right .. i was thinking development like vc++ ... you would get a 19inch for development and then a 17inch for debugging. For CAD you could use the second monitor to place your tooks and use the 19inch as your development canvas. *shrugs*



<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[bront]

Just get the Matrox card with 4 VGA outs, and 4 19" monitors. Why settle for anything less? Stack them in a square and work in 3200 x 2400 x 32 bit.

I don't need an anti-virus program, I just boil my computer once a week.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

lol ... ya but you won't have the opengl power .. this guy wants to do what seems to be some heavy 3d studio max stuff so he'd need a good graphics card.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[brianrg]

I talked to a friend who does much 3D rendering on his dual P3 1ghz system and he seems to think that an IDE drive is insufficient - that his computer crashes at times when rendering due to the fact that his drive is not SCSI.

When thinking dual processors or even single processors does SCSI really help versus a high end IDE drive such as the WD w/ 8mb?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[HonestJhon]

scsi has MUCH MORE throughput than IDE...due to the drives being able to pump more data through their interface. ide drives may be slow.
but i dont think that the hard drive is what is causing your friends lockups...sounds shady to me...
i cant think of why a slow hd would cause a lockup...it would just make the rendering process take LONGER.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[juin]

What will be your software
Have you some part allready.

cheap, cheap. Think cheap, and you'll always be cheap.AMD version of semi conducteur industrie

 

[Kelledin]

I talked to a friend who does much 3D rendering on his dual P3 1ghz system and he seems to think that an IDE drive is insufficient - that his computer crashes at times when rendering due to the fact that his drive is not SCSI.

I seriously doubt a slow drive is causing his system to crash. Mainly, the system should just bog down a bit if it's a speed problem, not crash. Second, 3D rendering doesn't do all that much disk I/O. It's mostly T&L power (for real-time mesh manipulation) and CPU power (for final raytraced rendering). A great deal of memory helps as well.

As far as CPUs for a 3D workstation, dual AthlonMP's are the most cost-efficient. I'd recommend a Tyan Tiger 760MP board. For a cheap 3D workstation, one of the nVidia MX cards might do well; they still have a good bit of hardware T&L power, even if their bandwidth is impaired.

<i>If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does it still cost four figures to fix?

 

[slvr_phoenix]

If you could learn to put a PC together yourself, you could save a large bundle on something like this. Going OEM you're likely to either get some cheap parts when they cut corners to save money, or you'll be paying out the asterisk.

Further, some people might say that the Athlon is going to give you a better bang for your buck. The majority of the time, I'll even agree. When you get into dual-Athlon MPs though, especially with 760MPX motherboards, the price can really get up there. Plus, dual-Athlons generate a lot of heat in that case.

I think in this respect, the Intel P3s often get overlooked as solid little performers for a pretty low price. (And with low heat.) Granted, using an official Tualutin would be more fun than the vastly less expensive Celeron, but when price dictates the system, the specs get trimmed.

So I went to Pricewatch.com and got the prices to put together the following system: (First $ is price, second $ is S&H)

Dual Celeron 1.3GHz w/ 1.5GB DDR and Fire GL
----------
Antec SX635 Mini Tower case w/350W PS = $69 + $15
Two generic 92mm x 25mm case fans = $12 + $5
Two retail Intel Celerons @ 1.3GHz CPUs = $150 + $18
MSI MS-9105 Dual socket 370 motherboard with DDR = $109 + $8
Three Infineon 512MB PC2100 CL2 unbuffered ECC DIMMs = $375 + $9
ATI AGP Fire GL 8700 64MB VGA/DVI = $347 + $10
Creative Labs SB Live! 5.1 Value = $24 + $9
Western Digital WD1000JB hard drive (for rendering) = $170 + $5
Maxtor 40GB 5400RPM IDE hard drive (for OS) = $49 + $12
retail Lite On CDRW 40x12x48x IDE w/Nero = $75 + $15
Samsung 3.5 inch 1.44MB floppy drive = $3 + $8
Mitsumi 104 key PS2 keyboard = $2 + $5
Microsoft IntelliMouse PS2 w/scroll wheel = $5 + $5
KDS VS-195XP 19inch 1600x1200 @ 85Hz .22MM = $158 + $41
Generic 200W speakers = $2 + $8
Microsoft Windows XP Professional = $300 + $10
----------
Total = $1850 + $183 = $2033

I think for a dual-CPU system with a professional OpenGL graphics card, it's about the best power you can get for that kind of a price range. It's pretty low-end as far as rendering boxes go. To give you a better idea of a low-to-middle end system (around $3500), I collected stats for this one:

Dual Tualatins 1.4GHz w/ 2GB DDR, Fire GL, DVD Burn, & SCSI
----------
Antec SX1240 Full Tower case w/400W & 2x92MM fans = $123 + $20
Two retail Intel Tualatins @ 1.4GHz = $598 + $20
MSI MS-9105RL Dual Tualatin w/DDR,LAN,RAID = $148 + $10
4 Infineon 512MB PC2100 CL2 unbuffered ECC DIMMs = $500 + $9
ATI retail AGP Fire GL 8700 64MB VGA/DVI = $369 + $10
Creative Labs retail Audigy Platinum w/Firewire = $150 + $14
Adaptec retail PCI AHA-29160 Ultra 160 SCSI = $271 + $15
Seagate Cheetah 36ES 36.7GB 10000RPM Ultra160 SCSI = $258 + $10
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 100GB 5400 RPM = $115 + $15
Pacific Digital retail U-30116 4.7GB DVD-R/RW CDRW IDE = $340 + $8
Samsung 3.5 inch 1.44MB floppy drive = $3 + $8
Mitsumi 104 key PS2 keyboard = $2 + $5
Microsoft IntelliMouse PS2 w/scroll wheel = $5 + $5
KDS VS-195XP 19inch 1600x1200 @ 85Hz .22MM = $158 + $41
Creative Labs Inspire 5.1 Surround Sound speakers = $72 + $9
Microsoft Windows XP Professional = $300 + $10
----------
Total = $3412 + $209 = $3621

I'd call <i>that</i> system a real workhorse for it's price. Of course, one could even replace the low-end Fire GL with a FireGL 8800 - 128MB RAM and replace the monitor with a 21 incher to bring the system cost just around 4 grand. That would be sweet too.

I'd love to see benchmarks for a box like this up against a dual Athlon MP box of otherwise exact same specs. It would be interesting to see not only performance benchmakrs, but stability over months of heavy use.

<pre><font color=orange><b>du hast den Sweater verkehrt an</b></font color=orange>
Oh my!</pre><p>

 

[Matisaro]

I'd love to see benchmarks for a box like this up against a dual Athlon MP box of otherwise exact same specs. It would be interesting to see not only performance benchmakrs, but stability over months of heavy use.

Silver, a properly set up amd system is just as stable as any pentium, shaaame on you for the hint otherwise ;-).

The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Silver, a properly set up amd system is just as stable as any pentium, shaaame on you for the hint otherwise ;-).

I'm not hinting, I'm flat out asking: Is it really?

In best-case scenarios I'd expect so. Even under typical use. However, this isn't typical use. With two CPUs in the same case, sitting so close to each other, can they exist with perfect stability under <i>extreme</i> stress (as in both CPUs at 100% use) over an extended period of time (as in at 24 hours or even 7 days straight) when the ambient enviorment meets or exceeds 30C and 100% or higher humidity?

We're not talking about a server farm in a super-air-conditioned room or with a funky air-conditioned case. We're talking about a typical air-cooled desktop workstation sitting on someone's desk in what could quite possibly be a room without AC in the middle of summer, while they generate minutes if not hours of frames rendered in 3D. Not to say that brianrg has or doesn't have AC, but that not everyone in the world does. (Though, admittedly, those who spend 2 grand or more on a PC <i>probably</i> do. ... Even if I have heard of a lot of people in California last year not running their ACs but still running their PCs.)

If it were dual P4s, we could expect that even in a worst-case scenario, they would throttle without becoming unstable and thus still perform (though slower) without actually locking up. If the CPUs were water-cooled, I'd expect them to probably be fine, no matter what CPU they were. But two high-clock Athlons so close to each other and working their butts off in typical ambient summer atmospheres? I have to wonder if they really can take the heat or not.

For that matter, I wonder if even a Tualatin can take the heat. It's a cooler chip, but it still turns off the whole system if you overheat it, so if you do heat the thing up too badly, life sucks.

And for that matter, even if the CPUs can take such heat, can the RAM take it? Can the northbridge take it? Can the hard drives take it? Can the video card take it? I would expect that the Athlons for no other reason than just being hotter than Celerons/Tualatins would generate more heat inside of the case.

I'm not hinting that an Athlon system under normal circumstances can't take the heat. I'm simply forced to wonder just how <i>properly set up</i> would a dual-Athlon (or even dual-Tualatins) PC have to be in order to ensure system stability even under extreme stress in less-than-ideal operating environments. How many extra case fans? How many fans positioned over components specifically? (Such as memory fans, an fan on the northbridge, fans over the hard drives, etc., etc.) How 'properly' is proper for a system <i>that</i> stressed out?

I'd love to see some benchmarks on what configurations last how long to determine which components (or really, combinations of components) are the weakest links in a dual-CPU workstation.

<pre><font color=orange><b>du hast den Sweater verkehrt an</b></font color=orange>
Oh my!</pre><p>

 

[bront]

Microsoft Windows XP Professional = $300 + $10

Why not get the OEM OS and save $150?

I don't need an anti-virus program, I just boil my computer once a week.

 

[Matisaro]

I believe anandtech is running their forums on a dual amd system and its been going strong some 6 months now.

Your temprature concerns are not in a properly vented case, 2 amd chips at stock dont put much more heat out than 2 p3's at stock, your fears are true of any dual system, if you have inadequate case cooling you will have issues, even a dual p4 would have issues, what do you think will happen when cpu 1 throttles but 2 dosent on a multithreaded application?

I dont think cpus for dual systems have to be the same speed for nothing, what kinds of errors will occur in the event of a single cpu throttling?


The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Why not get the OEM OS and save $150?

Why not get Linux and save $300? Heh heh.

Seriously though, I put that down because MS is being weird and I personally wouldn't reccomend doing anything which could conflict with that weirdness.

<A HREF="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25085.html" target="_new">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25085.html</A>

So my thoughts are, if you stick to a retail (non OEM) license, then MS can't possibly consider the system to have had Windows 'pre-installed' because no OEM pre-installed it.

<pre><font color=orange><b>du hast den Sweater verkehrt an</b></font color=orange>
Oh my!</pre><p>